Comparison of 6th generation game console hardware

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Isn't this one of the most wildly misquoted quotes about the Saturn's abilities? If I remember correctly when this was brought up before it was pointed out that he was referring to some specific thing with Virtua Fighter's development that even the PS1 would struggle with.

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I'm not sure tbh, I don't recall reading anything about that it was misquoted, I just remember reading that quote in an interview with Edge, I still have the magazine somewhere and I'll have to pull it out and see exactly in what context it referred to. At the time I just found it surprising that Suzuki would be quite so critical of the Saturn.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

It's really funny how this guy has changed his tune after his company died. Back when he was actually developing for the system he had nothing but praise to give the system as well as calling out other developers who called the system weak at 3D.

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I gotta say I was pretty surprised that ED trashed the Saturn so heavily in that interview, it was even more surprising considering that Leadbetter had been an editor of the official Sega mags in the UK and conducted this interview for Eurogamer. But having looked back at my issues of Official Sega Saturn Magazine (Issue 14 - December 1996 to be precise) There was an interview with Ezra Dreisbach and another guy from Lobotomy discussing the development of Quake (Page 49) and during that interview they are asked a couple of questions regarding the issue development on the Saturn and ED wasn't exactly glowing on the Saturn.

Here's the questions and ED's answers:

SSM: Is the Saturn well-suited to the first person perspective 3D game, or was in-depth programming expertise required to get the best out of the system?

ED: The Saturn is less well suited to this sort of game than the Playstation. There are limitations on the Saturn's texturing that make the most widely used approaches to some rendering problems impossible to do. The Exhumed (Powerslave) engine uses different algorithms that work around these problems.

The later in the interview this question is asked:

SSM: Programming for the Saturn is widely acknowledged as being harder than on the Playstation. As a successful Saturn developer would you agree with this view?

ED: For 3D games. I would say this is true.


However ED didn't seem to have an issue with the dual CPU setup when he was interviewed by SSM.

SSM: How did you get the most out of the out of the Saturn's complex dual CPU and video chip arrangement?

ED: I didn't get much use out the VDP2. It's drawing the parallax sky and the weapons. The main benefit of this is that it frees up VDP1 RAM for other stuff. I would much rather have had the VDP2's RAM attached to the VDP1. I am using both CPUs. One CPU draws walls, the other does everything else. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. The engine runs almost twice as fast in complicated areas using both CPUs.


Overall I though the Eurogamer interview was kinda revealing about what Ezra Driesbach thought about the Saturn and I hadn't seen it quoted anywhere on this forum.

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I really don't think N64 can be placed in the same group as those from an "impressive sales" perspective.

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It sold some 60 odd million and did very well in the USA. If the Saturn had sold like that SEGA fans would have been very happy .

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But I would list that reason as one of the historical reasons for failure to garner the same level of support as the PS1 was due to certain developer's difficulties with the system and Sega's inability to solve those issues relatively quickly.

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To me its just an excuse and so called console developers being lazy.

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But you see, you claim that he's a liar because he says in one part of the interview that Sega is able to counter the 3DO with the MegaDrive/MegaCD combo, but then when he says that Sega is just as able to put together a 32 bit console you seemingly believe him and point to that as being proof he knew about Sega's Saturn plans?

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There was no way SEGA could have brought out a 32 bit console when Tom made those comments , but it did show SEGA was working on a 32 Bit system and so SOA knew full well of SEGA's Saturn plans .

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I still have the magazine somewhere and I'll have to pull it out and see exactly in what context it referred to. At the time I just found it surprising that Suzuki would be quite so critical of the Saturn.

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He wasn't knocking the Saturn, just pointing out that there's bit of delay with both SH-2 being used. But we can all use selective quoting, no one hear seems to be quoting Yu Suzuki interviews after he showed off the SGL and where he was full of praise for the Saturn and how with VC and VF II he was enjoying Saturn development

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I gotta say I was pretty surprised that ED trashed the Saturn so heavily in that interview,

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He was just being honest . Everyone knows the PS had better 3D and that a lot of developers didn't like quads . But developers can change their tune when it suits them ; Seem to remember Oddworld Inhabitants slating the DC weak polygons performance and praising the PS2, only to then slate the PS2 when they jumped ship the XBox. When it comes to the Saturn most developers just didn't like the fact that SEGA tools were behind that of the PS and things like the Performance Analyser just rammed this home..

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

NAOMI 2 was more inline with the PS2/GC/Xbox though wasn't it?

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It is better described as a dreamcast with more ram, 2x graphics in SLI, and an extra math coprocessor. It certainly comes a bit closer to the PS2/GC/Xbox, but ultimately it is still a generation apart from them.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

It sold some 60 odd million and did very well in the USA. If the Saturn had sold like that SEGA fans would have been very happy .

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60 million? :o Sounds just a tad high to me. From what I've read N64 sold just over 30 million, so slightly more than half your figure.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

To me its just an excuse and so called console developers being lazy.

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Hang on a minute. So now the developers who complained about the Saturn are "lazy"? So is Ezra Dreisbach lazy too? Because below you said that "He was just being honest" so which is it? Laziness or Honesty?

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

There was no way SEGA could have brought out a 32 bit console when Tom made those comments , but it did show SEGA was working on a 32 Bit system and so SOA knew full well of SEGA's Saturn plans.

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TBH I have no interest in debating whether he was lying or not, most of what company execs, like Kalinske, spout is PR bullshit and is solely said to put a positive spin on the company he represents. I don't seriously think he was completely in the loop on what SOJ had planned for the 32 bit system and I think he was just defending the company with positive PR spin.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

He wasn't knocking the Saturn, just pointing out that there's bit of delay with both SH-2 being used. But we can all use selective quoting, no one hear seems to be quoting Yu Suzuki interviews after he showed off the SGL and where he was full of praise for the Saturn and how with VC and VF II he was enjoying Saturn development

He was just being honest . Everyone knows the PS had better 3D and that a lot of developers didn't like quads . But developers can change their tune when it suits them ; Seem to remember Oddworld Inhabitants slating the DC weak polygons performance and praising the PS2, only to then slate the PS2 when they jumped ship the XBox. When it comes to the Saturn most developers just didn't like the fact that SEGA tools were behind that of the PS and things like the Performance Analyser just rammed this home..

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Or Lazy depending on your point of view. ;)


I'm not really sure there is much point to debating this any further since it really represents a total detour from the primary discussion, which centers around the Dreamcast. You appear to have take issue with and/or offense at my original comment that the Saturn was a "costly failure". I still believe and maintain that since the Saturn was a commercial failure, that this failure was indeed costly to Sega as a brand and also for their future as a console manufacturer.

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60 million? Sounds just a tad high to me. From what I've read N64 sold just over 30 million, so slightly more than half your figure.

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I seem to remember in a Nintendo interview them sayings sales of the units were 50 t0 60 million . Hell even if it was 30 million for Saturn that would have SEGA's 2nd best selling system .

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So now the developers who complained about the Saturn are "lazy"?

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Yes the ones who moaned at its use of Quads and Assembly and so couldn't port their PS and C+ code over . A so called consoel developer should use each console to its fullest and not try to share code .

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So is Ezra Dreisbach lazy too? Because below you said that "He was just being honest" so which is it? Laziness or Honesty

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No the big difference with Ezra is that for all his knocking of the system, he coded to the metal of the system and didn't try re-using PS or PC code on the Saturn . That's a big difference

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I think he was just defending the company with positive PR spin.

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No he would have known full well about the Saturn , lets face it Core before Thunder Hawk even made it out had themself's also had early access to Saturn tech spec's .

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I still believe and maintain that since the Saturn was a commercial failure, that this failure was indeed costly to Sega as a brand and also for their future as a console manufacturer.

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The Saturn unlike the DC didn't make SEGA pull out of the Hardware market . It was the DC that cost SEGA

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Or Lazy depending on your point of view

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Or more like what their paymasters PR Dept tells them to say . I seem to remember SEGA/Smilebit and all its fans saying Cell shading was impossible on the PS2 to that of JSR on the DC.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Yes the ones who moaned at its use of Quads and Assembly and so couldn't port their PS and C+ code over . A so called consoel developer should use each console to its fullest and not try to share code .
No the big difference with Ezra is that for all his knocking of the system, he coded to the metal of the system and didn't try re-using PS or PC code on the Saturn . That's a big difference

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Man you are making some huge assumptions there, you're assuming that the only developers moaning about the Saturn were the lazy ones who "moaned at its use of Quads and Assembly and so couldn't port their PS and C+ code over" I've posted that interview with Ezra Driesbach showing him complaining about the use of Quads and I bet there are others that worked hard on the Saturn but still disliked working on the system.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

No he would have known full well about the Saturn , lets face it Core before Thunder Hawk even made it out had themself's also had early access to Saturn tech spec's .

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Where did you read that?

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

The Saturn unlike the DC didn't make SEGA pull out of the Hardware market . It was the DC that cost SEGA.

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No it was the 32x/Saturn debacle that thoroughly screwed up Sega's reputation with a lot of people and allowed Sony to dominate console gaming with out any kind of competition. As a result, this weakened Sega substantially and ultimately doomed the Dreamcast too, which then forced Sega out.

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I've posted that interview with Ezra Driesbach showing him complaining about the use of Quads and I bet there are others that worked hard on the Saturn but still disliked working on the system

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Its funny how you keep on posting about Ezra; In SSM very 1st interview with Lombotomy I believe they mentioned the fact that many developers trying to put PS code on the Saturn and it doesn't work. I'm sure there's an interview with Jon Burton who loved the Saturn and its box of tricks that kept on giving .

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Where did you read that

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In a UK Mag and then in EDGE issue 3 Core went into more detail.

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No it was the 32x/Saturn debacle that thoroughly screwed up Sega's reputation with a lot of people and allowed Sony to dominate console gaming with out any kind of competition.

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32X was a cock up of that they is no doubt, but lets all remember the NES dominated the 8 bit console world too. Yes It was the loss of marketshare that cost SEGA dear but trying to sell the DC at lost forced SEGA out of the Hardware market for consoles .

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Its funny how you keep on posting about Ezra; In SSM very 1st interview with Lombotomy I believe they mentioned the fact that many developers trying to put PS code on the Saturn and it doesn't work. I'm sure there's an interview with Jon Burton who loved the Saturn and its box of tricks that kept on giving .

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I don't doubt there is any interview with him and that he said that, after all there are devs out there who praise the Jaguar, N64 and PS2 for much the same thing. I'm not denying your point just pointing out that this wasn't the majority opinion.
And I think its funny how, despite admitting that there were issues with Saturn development and the hardware in general, that you are continuing to trivialize and minimize the impact that had on the system and how you dismiss these criticisms as only coming from lazy developers etc. I guess in your opinion John Carmack is another one of those lazy devs.

Here's a couple of quotes from him on the Saturn:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/02/wha...aturn-and-n64/

Quote: "PS1 was the best design of its generation. Saturn was nuts, and N64's push to SGI style pixels was technologically premature."

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/921...interview.html


Quote: "The PS3 is still far and away better than anything else that’s ever been made... except maybe the 360. It’s a great time to be a developer. It’s not like working with the Sega Saturn of the PS2, where these are really kind of quirky, cranky, architectures that are not, well, architected, I would say."

But I guess the guy that worked through all the dev issues with the Atari Jaguar and its buggy chipset in order to get an (at the time) awesome port of Doom running is another lazy dev. Huh? :?

But by all means keep dismissing my point.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

In a UK Mag and then in EDGE issue 3 Core went into more detail.

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While interesting that only proves that Core had access to those kits, it doesn't prove your accusations that Kalinske was lying about not knowing about the 32 bit system Sege was working on.
Core probably received those dev kits direct from SOJ, thereby by passing both SOE and SOA. With the broken way the Sega divisions worked and communicated back then it would not surprise me to find that SOA had no idea that Core even had them. I have that copy of Edge as well so I'll have to check that out.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

32X was a cock up of that they is no doubt, but lets all remember the NES dominated the 8 bit console world too. Yes It was the loss of marketshare that cost SEGA dear but trying to sell the DC at lost forced SEGA out of the Hardware market for consoles .

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Sorry but imo the NES comparison is a poor one since the market conditions were completely opposite to what Sony was facing when they launched the PS1. Nintendo launched the NES in to a console market that was still reeling from the crash and there were no real competitors to given them viable competition, they then locked down the market with their anti-competitive, monopolistic licencing practices, until Sega was able to force their way in to the market.

Compare that to the conditions in 1994 where we had a very vibrant, strong console market with 2 very strong competitors. Both Sega and Nintendo massively screwed up their chances in different ways and allowed Sony to gatecrash their party. Once Sony had control of the market the writing was already on the wall.

Your contention that Sega was forced out because they had to sell that Dreamcast at a loss is also a faulty one as well. Most consoles are sold at a loss, but normally those losses are made up in software sales and licencing fees, Sega's image was so damaged that the Dreamcast really wasn't taken seriously as a result of their poor handling of their 32bit offering.

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I guess in your opinion John Carmack is another one of those lazy devs.

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Well he may have knocked the PS3 a little, but its power was still better than the 360 .And to his credit id had RAGE looking and running as good on both the 360 and PS3 . No issues with developers than while moan at a systems faults, still use the console to its fullest .

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And I think its funny how, despite admitting that there were issues with Saturn development and the hardware in general

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Not at all , that happens with every console . I could get a list of interviews with developers moaning at the Mega Drive sound chip or its lack of colours and other effects , then there's a lot of developers that disliked the Super Nintendo tools and its CPU . It doesn't make them bad machines and in the end market share (more than ease of use) wins out for development support .

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"PS1 was the best design of its generation. Saturn was nuts, and N64's push to SGI style pixels was technologically premature.

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I'll have a lot more respect for him if he actually coded games on the systems in question , rather than handing out the ports to outside 3rd parties . Also I seem to remember Carmark saying the Jaguar was the best system he ever worked on, but there you go.

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While interesting that only proves that Core had access to those kits

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LOL. You really think the heads of SEGA Europe and America would be kept in the dark, while tiny British corps like Core had early accesses to Saturn spec's . Pull the other one mate .

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Core probably received those dev kits direct from SOJ, thereby by passing both SOE and SOA

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And Pigs fly .

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But I guess the guy that worked through all the dev issues with the Atari Jaguar and its buggy chipset in order to get

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Well since you want to quote Yu Suzuki over the Saturn CPU. Let me quote your man Carmark ...

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The only real mistake I think was made is in the keeping of a 68000 as the CPU. If you just write something the easy way and run it on the on the 68000 it be very slow

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I think they (Atari) should have used another RISC processor with a dynamic cache as the CPU

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You see like Yu Suzuki you can like a system , but think of ways the Hardware could have been better

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Core probably received those dev kits direct from SOJ

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SEGA Japan Saturn Europe developers kits we all set to SEGA HQ in Europe 1st . Its they were they get bug checked Ect, Ect . Also you must be off on one, if you think a UK Gaming mag and a UK development studio knew more of SEGA Saturn plans , than either SEGA America or Europe .

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Sorry but imo the NES comparison is a poor one since the market conditions were completely opposite

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What was the NES marketshare compared to the Master System ? I'm guessing it killed the Master system, but just as much as the PS did over the Saturn .

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Your contention that Sega was forced out because they had to sell that Dreamcast at a loss is also a faulty one as well

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Back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days you never sold your consoles at a lost. Selling the DC at a huge lost to start off with and then continue with big price cuts saw SEGA loss stunning amounts of money , more than $250 million in each quarter . That's why SEGA had to cut the DC off as quick as it did.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

And Pigs fly .

<SNIP>

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:roll: sigh.

Well back to normal programming. Circular argument over, TA won, stu died of boredom. Back to 6th gen subjects.

Did Carmack even program anything for the Saturn? All of id Software's Saturn ports were outsourced last I checked. I know he programmed for the 32X, is it possible in that interview he mixed the two up?

EDIT:

Missed these earlier posts:

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Originally Posted by sheath

Yep, it is just too bad you are too busy being "right" that you cannot see the flaws in your own argument. What exactly is a polygon or vector according to these emulators?

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The number in PCSX2 was labeled as ppf in earlier versions, or Polygons Per Frame. Primitive is another term for Polygon, and that's what Dolphin uses. NullDC uses the term Vetices, which could be a loose term for polygons or could mean the points for the polygons. If it's the later, the polygon count is even lower.

The numbers may not be perfect, but it's far more than you've given.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Can we compare one emulator's output to another?

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Yes, Barone actually did it earlier. The counts were similar.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Since they are all undoubtedly high level emulators I already know they cannot produce absolutely infallible numbers for the original hardware. Does anybody know how far off they are? Does anybody know whether any version of any 3D system emulator actually has accomplished the feat of showing the world what each game is showing polygon wise, and texture wise, per second or per frame?

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Dolphin's giving a pretty good read out. Yeah, it's a high level emulator, that doesn't mean it magically puts more polygons in the models or tells the CPU and GPU to draw more Polygons than what the compiled code tells it to.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Their target audience will_not care whether the source material is accurately represented for the original SD output in this case.

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There is an option to run in Native Resolution with no enhancements on all these emulators. Which is what I was running in when I took those shots.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Claiming that loading emulators and looking at the outputs for an absolute figure on what the systems, or games, were actually producing is the worst disservice to this group and this thread that I have seen yet.

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So you'd rather we pull numbers out of our ass like you? It's not like these emulators magically increase draw distance or make the models stored on the discs have more polygons. The same number of polygons are being calculated by the CPU, and are being sent to the GPU. And as I've stated below, I'm pretty sure they are being culled close to how they are on the real thing since the numbers we are getting are very close to the numbers the developers themselves gave for these games. All that's going to improve here is rendering resolution, and frame rate. Both of those numbers we know what the real systems do for these games already, which is why Barone and I are using games that we know the real framerates for.

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Originally Posted by rusty

I think in terms of polys being sent to the GPU, an emulator can be pretty spot on. Since were MOSTLY dealing with triangles, it's a good measurement of what a game is pushing through the graphics pipeline. However, that's where it ends. In determining the actual number of triangles that are drawn, all an emulator can do is provide us with a baseline figure to do our estimates, which is why there's this disagreement of the numbers being actual polys rendered or number of polys submitted before culling and rendering happens.

After looking at the emulators source, I'm pretty certain that it's the numbers of polys submitted before any guard band and back-face culling occurs, so the number of polys actually drawn is around half of that number, perhaps less.

If you want anything more fine grain than that then an emulator isn't going to help. I think one of the issues here is that Trekkie wants a certain result, and won't look or lacks the knowledge to be able to look any deeper to verify it. Which is ok, because somebody else can always do that digging and propose a counter-argument.

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I would be inclined to believe you if it weren't for the fact that some of the shots Barone posted matched up with what the developers were saying about those games polygon performance. The Rogue Squadron 2 shot has a very high count, it's also a shot where there's not much in the way of those high detail models to cause a lot of culling. If I got right up infront of the X-Wing the polygon count dropped substantially. If I looked at the ships from different angles, the polygon counts changed dramatically as well. If the polygons weren't being culled, I would imagine the numbers wouldn't be fluctuating that much correct?

The fact is, the Rogue Squadron 2 numbers match up quite nicely with the numbers given by Factor 5 when the game came out:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sta.../1100-2800309/

From the Article:
Average Polygons Per Frame: 150,000
Rebel Ships: 15,000 Polygons
Enemy Ships: 3,000 to 130,000 Polygons.

So I think it's safe to say those numbers are pretty damn accurate. In game I was getting 80k to 130k polygons per frame, which is within the number Factor 5 gave.

If these numbers are not being culled then that means that some of these games are getting into unbelievably low polygon counts. Using the estimate you gave of half or less, that would mean Daytona USA on the Dreamcast would be in the 100,000-600,000 polygons per second range in that case. That's 1,000-10,000 polygons per frame. That's Saturn and PS1 level polygon counts. Metal Gear Solid 2 would be in the 900,000 Polygons per second range, which you claimed was pumping out tons of polygons. Saying these counts aren't accurate and are most likely half or less to disprove one of the most impressive polygon pushing games of that generation falls apart when you try to apply that logic to the more average games.

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Originally Posted by stu

:roll: sigh.

Well back to normal programming.

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Well C'Mon . To make out that SEGA Japan went behind SEGA Europe back and secretly shipped to CORE wit out SOE knowing is pushing it . If they were 'such' secrecy . 1) CORE would have never talked about in an Interview with one of the biggest selling UK mag's at the time, never mind they was also an SEGA PR man as part of the Interview.

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Did Carmack even program anything for the Saturn

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No he never, that doesn't mean comments are without merit though . Come to think of it , I don't think he wrote anything for the PS either . That said I remember Peter Molyneux saying all 16 bit consoles were utter rubbish and he be glad to see the back of them. So we can all cherry pick the odd interview I guess

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I would be inclined to believe you if it weren't for the fact that some of the shots Barone posted matched up with what the developers were saying about those games polygon performance. The Rogue Squadron 2 shot has a very high count, it's also a shot where there's not much in the way of those high detail models to cause a lot of culling. If I got right up infront of the X-Wing the polygon count dropped substantially. If I looked at the ships from different angles, the polygon counts changed dramatically as well. If the polygons weren't being culled, I would imagine the numbers wouldn't be fluctuating that much correct?

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All I can say is to look at the source yourself. Unless the emulator is going through the triangle list, transforming them into clip space and counting the front-facing triangles before submitting to the GPU (which I can't see), I can't think of any other way it would be counting the tris.

How exactly are you looking at the ships from different angles? By moving around the ship with the camera? Because there could be a number of reason for the fluctuations.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

The fact is, the Rogue Squadron 2 numbers match up quite nicely with the numbers given by Factor 5 when the game came out:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/sta.../1100-2800309/

From the Article:
Average Polygons Per Frame: 150,000
Rebel Ships: 15,000 Polygons
Enemy Ships: 3,000 to 130,000 Polygons.

So I think it's safe to say those numbers are pretty damn accurate. In game I was getting 80k to 130k polygons per frame, which is within the number Factor 5 gave.

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Yup, they do. However, by "triangles rendered" I think they really meant "triangles submitted" because at the 150,000 triangle average, your average triangle size is pretty small, assuming that they are un-textured and also un-lit, using one TEV stage, and you're running the fill-rate at it's maximum theoretical limit.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

If these numbers are not being culled then that means that some of these games are getting into unbelievably low polygon counts. Using the estimate you gave of half or less, that would mean Daytona USA on the Dreamcast would be in the 100,000-600,000 polygons per second range in that case. That's 1,000-10,000 polygons per frame. That's Saturn and PS1 level polygon counts. Metal Gear Solid 2 would be in the 900,000 Polygons per second range, which you claimed was pumping out tons of polygons. Saying these counts aren't accurate and are most likely half or less to disprove one of the most impressive polygon pushing games of that generation falls apart when you try to apply that logic to the more average games.

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So for things like the PS2, I hit on this on the other thread. Where on the GC, you relied on Flipper to do the culling for you, it worked differently on the PS2. You did that at the vertex transform stage on VU1. Sony from the very beginning recommended that you didn't bother doing the calculation (and so we didn't) because the triangles would be rendered in both contexts (rendering two triangles) in less time than it would take to perform the calculation. And that calculation isn't difficult, it's just a 2d cross product. Given a triangle in clip-space with vertices v0, v1, v2 you would calculate;

d0 = v1 - v0;
d1 = v2 - v0;

direction = (d0.x - d1.y) * (d0.y - d1.x);

The sign of direction would tell you if the vertices are clock-wise or counter clock-wise. And on VU1, that's only a few clock-cycles. What emulator have you been using? I wouldn't mind looking into that and mucking around with the rendering pipe-line on MGS2 :)

As I mentioned before the PS2 Emulator is PCSX2.

As for Rogue Squadron 2, the ships are using very small triangles. You can see it in the Developer video on the game disc. Here is a very realistic situation that can happen in that game:

Your ship with 15,000 polygons (let's say 7,000 for an estimate of culled polygons) is sitting between two star destroyers that are very close together. Each Star Destroyer model is 130,000 polygons. So if the count get's dropped in half for culling, that's still 130,000 polygons between the two of them. So we're already at close to 140,000 culled polygons and that's not even including the oodles of enemy ships and allied fighters flying around you as well as the lasers, shadows, lights, and background objects going on.

This is a very realistic scenario that happens in the Battle of Endor stage. And it's right in line with that 150,000 number Factor 5 gave. After playing it for hours I have no problem believing the numbers Factor 5 gave or that I got from Dolphin. The game is using tons of polygons for ship detail. I have to ask, have you ever played this game or seen it in action?

You keep saying this is the max theoretical limit, but considering the official specs of the system are listed as realistic specs and give polygon performance as up to 12 million with all effects, I think you need to go back and rethink things. I'm not doubting your PS2 knowledge, I'm doubting your Gamecube knowledge. From what you've posted it seems like you really did try to push the PS2 very hard in the games you made for it, but it seems that all you did on Gamecube was quick PS2 ports. It doesn't seem like you really tried to push that system like you did with the PS2. So sorry but I'm going to take the word of developers like Factor 5 who really pushed that system before I take your word that they were going above some theoretical limit.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

As I mentioned before the PS2 Emulator is PCSX2.

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I thought that it was. I just wanted to check.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

As for Rogue Squadron 2, the ships are using very small triangles. You can see it in the Developer video on the game disc. Here is a very realistic situation that can happen in that game:

Your ship with 15,000 polygons (let's say 7,000 for an estimate of culled polygons) is sitting between two star destroyers that are very close together. Each Star Destroyer model is 130,000 polygons. So if the count get's dropped in half for culling, that's still 130,000 polygons between the two of them. So we're already at close to 140,000 culled polygons and that's not even including the oodles of enemy ships and allied fighters flying around you as well as the lasers, shadows, lights, and background objects going on.

This is a very realistic scenario that happens in the Battle of Endor stage. And it's right in line with that 150,000 number Factor 5 gave. After playing it for hours I have no problem believing the numbers Factor 5 gave or that I got from Dolphin. The game is using tons of polygons for ship detail. I have to ask, have you ever played this game or seen it in action?

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Yeah, I have played them. I just didn't think they were anything special. I do know that there is some quite aggressive level of detailing going on (where lower res models are used for objects) and you often won't see the full-res model until it's quite close.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

You keep saying this is the max theoretical limit, but considering the official specs of the system are listed as realistic specs and give polygon performance as up to 12 million with all effects, I think you need to go back and rethink things.

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Ok, so you make a good point. However, that "realistic" specs thing is a bit muddy - it has more to do with how Flipper process vertices than anything else and was hard for the ArtFX guys to really quantify; partially because I think (well...after talking to certain people, I KNOW this) they lacked real world data and went for a conservative estimate. The fill-rate is the finite barrier here. I used in my own calculation (Flipper speed * number of pixel pipes), and the theoretical spec is merely raw pixel bandwidth. It doesn't take into account for things like the cost of triangle setup, or texture fetch latencies.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I'm not doubting your PS2 knowledge, I'm doubting your Gamecube knowledge. From what you've posted it seems like you really did try to push the PS2 very hard in the games you made for it, but it seems that all you did on Gamecube was quick PS2 ports. It doesn't seem like you really tried to push that system like you did with the PS2. So sorry but I'm going to take the word of developers like Factor 5 who really pushed that system before I take your word that they were going above some theoretical limit.

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I can see where you're coming from from on this, and I'm not going to contest this too much because it sort of becomes about me, rather than the hardware. I'd like to avoid that. I will say that I never did a quick PS2 port on the Gamecube, though. And I never, ever settle for sub-standard work.

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Originally Posted by rusty

Yeah, I have played them. I just didn't think they were anything special. I do know that there is some quite aggressive level of detailing going on (where lower res models are used for objects) and you often won't see the full-res model until it's quite close.

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Yeah, it does do that on the fighters. On the larger ships like the Star Destroyers it doesn't seem to be nearly as aggressive. In Battle of Endor it's very possible to have both Star Destoryers in view with rather high detailed models being used.

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Originally Posted by rusty

Ok, so you make a good point. However, that "realistic" specs thing is a bit muddy

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Yes, it is a bit muddy. It's because the figures are on a conservative low end. There were quite a few developers at the time saying 20-30 million polygons was reasonable for a realistic figure. Factor 5 was one of those developers.

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Originally Posted by rusty

The fill-rate is the finite barrier here. I used in my own calculation (Flipper speed * number of pixel pipes), and the theoretical spec is merely raw pixel bandwidth. It doesn't take into account for things like the cost of triangle setup, or texture fetch latencies.

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I get what you're saying about the fillrate, but what I'm asking is are you sure that those 150,000 polygons per frame is actually getting to close to the pixel fill rate boundary? What calculation are you using to determine that?

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Originally Posted by rusty

I can see where you're coming from from on this, and I'm not going to contest this too much because it sort of becomes about me, rather than the hardware. I'd like to avoid that. I will say that I never did a quick PS2 port on the Gamecube, though. And I never, ever settle for sub-standard work.

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Sorry, I'm not trying to make it personal, I'm just saying from what you are posting that you come of as much more experienced with the PS2 than you do with the Gamecube. Out of curiosity what games did you work on for the Gamecube?

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Yes, it is a bit muddy. It's because the figures are on a conservative low end. There were quite a few developers at the time saying 20-30 million polygons was reasonable for a realistic figure. Factor 5 was one of those developers.

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Yeah, given the vertex throughout on the GC that wouldn't surprise me. However, I think it's important to state that it would probably be more accurate to say that Flipper can transform the vertices for 20-30 million triangles. And this is much much higher than Nintendo's figures. They gave something like 32 million VERTICES with only a single colour, and 20 million VERTICES for 1 light source and 1 texture. Which would only be ~10 and 7 million triangles per second as peek performance.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I get what you're saying about the fillrate, but what I'm asking is are you sure that those 150,000 polygons per frame is actually getting to close to the pixel fill rate boundary? What calculation are you using to determine that?

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I gave it above. I took the speed of Flipper in Mhz and multiplied it by the number of pixel pipelines. So that's 162Mhz multiplied by 4 which is 648 megapixels/second. Divide that by 60fps and 150,000 triangles, that gives us 72 pixels for each triangle or a 16 by 9 pixel triangle. However, all of that assume absolute optimal throughput without any stalls.

You could do more than 150,000 triangles per frame, if you rendered smaller triangles. But at that point, you're also spending more time in triangle clipping, culling and setup. I've seen a few developers really get killed on performance (not just on GC, but modern platforms too) because they assumed that just because a triangle wasn't being rendered, that it didn't cost anything to submit.

It's worth point out that in terms of pixel/texel throughout, all of Nintendo's numbers assumed a 200Mhz GPU speed. So 1 texture was 800MegaPixels a second. Given that there were 4 pipelines, it's obvious that the number was calculated by multiplying the clock speed by the number of pixel pipes.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Sorry, I'm not trying to make it personal, I'm just saying from what you are posting that you come of as much more experienced with the PS2 than you do with the Gamecube. Out of curiosity what games did you work on for the Gamecube?

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No need to be sorry. So this is the bit where I have to say, I'm not willing to share. I sort of value what little anonymity that I have. I did a fair bit of GC stuff, but all of it wasn't released. Only two PS2 titles (out of six) that I've worked on were never released. One employer didn't have a very good relationship with Nintendo, and another, well, we know the story with the last time that I looked at the GC. I think at this point, you'd be quite right to be skeptical but you're right in saying that my GC experience is nowhere near as in-depth as PS2.

I've also done a lot of Wii stuff, but again, nothing released since my employer canned the stuff we were doing.

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Originally Posted by rusty

I gave it above. I took the speed of Flipper in Mhz and multiplied it by the number of pixel pipelines. So that's 162Mhz multiplied by 4 which is 648 megapixels/second.

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I got that, I was asking for the one below.

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Originally Posted by rusty

Divide that by 60fps and 150,000 triangles, that gives us 72 pixels for each triangle or a 16 by 9 pixel triangle. However, all of that assume absolute optimal throughput without any stalls.

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And why would that be a bad thing? That's only half what you'd have for a game running at around 75,000 polygons per frame. The resolution here is 640x480, so a polygon that has an area of 72 pixels wouldn't be that much of an issue in terms of how big it appeared on screen I'd assume. And what if the sizes were mixed, such as some bigger than 72 pixels and some smaller than 72 pixels. When you look at the models for Rogue Squadron the polygons get really tiny in the more detailed areas of the models, so I wouldn't be surprised that's where those high numbers are coming from. Not to mention RS2 isn't doing that many advanced effects, or using lots of different models. It's just pumping out a lot of polygons at a smooth framerate and reusing a lot of models.

To bring it back to the camera issue, in the hangar if I stood right infront of the X-Wing, the polygon number dropped to below 20,000 per frame. So that would be the scenery, one piece of the X-Wing, and the pilot. That's not unbelievable. If the polygons weren't being culled wouldn't that number be much higher as it would be including all the polygons for the X-Wing as well as all the objects behind it? Behind it we would have another X-Wing and at least 2 Y-Wings with a lot more scenery. If they polygons weren't being culled wouldn't those high detail models increase that number?

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Originally Posted by stu

Saturn was nuts

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But that's what made it great!

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Originally Posted by sheath

Claiming that loading emulators and looking at the outputs for an absolute figure on what the systems, or games, were actually producing is the worst disservice to this group and this thread that I have seen yet.

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High-level emulated and possibly inaccurate numbers are still more relevant than numbers created out of your guesswork; but of course you claim otherwise.
Yeah, right, providing non-"sheath certified" info is always a disservice...

The best way to look for polycounts , is to rip meshes/models directly from the games, imho. There are plenty of tools to do so...

Looking at some models most would be surprised.

I stumbled across this recently. It's a video of F-Zero GX drawing only wireframes:



Once again, it think it's safe to assume this game is pushing a buttload of polygons.

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Originally Posted by Barone

*Dreamcast dev video*

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Looking at his other videos, pretty impressive what hes got going on in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCLXIaVSQcw

The rendering is kinda screwy in his engine. But, looks like a small step towards Skyrim on the Dreamcast.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I stumbled across this recently. It's a video of F-Zero GX drawing only wireframes:



Once again, it think it's safe to assume this game is pushing a buttload of polygons.

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Its mind blowing they also got it running at 480p and 60 FPS.

Like I said in the other thread, it sucks they put so much effort into it and it only sold 500,000.

Wow, this thread has been dead for a while.

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...ce2MX_680w.png
http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...ce2MX_680w.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...Geforce2MX.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...Geforce2MX.png

Post the important one sheath:

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...erateBench.png

Quake III is running on 1998/1999 GPUs here and it's running far better than the Dreamcast port which dips below 30fps quite frequently with lower texture and geometry detail.

sheath is probably having a hard time dealing with Digital Foundry these days:

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Remember guys, the entire generation was hovering around only 1 Million Polygons Per Second!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGTR0G2xC1E

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Back in reality:

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...erateBench.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...sEstimated.png

Is there any point you're trying to make with these posts or it's just your regular trolling?

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Originally Posted by sheath

Back in reality:

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...erateBench.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...sEstimated.png

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The reality that those 1998/1999 spec PCs are blowing the Dreamcast out of the water in terms of performance? The only one close to Dreamcast performance is the RIVA and you conveneintly left out the resolution and other details you were running it at. It's also the only one not in the same PC with the same CPU.

The reality that launch PS2 games were already hitting above 2 million polygons per second contrary to your previous claim years ago that the entire generation was hovering around 1 million polygons per second?

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Quake III is running on 1998/1999 GPUs here and it's running far better than the Dreamcast port which dips below 30fps quite frequently with lower texture and geometry detail.

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Which one of those systems cost $200 with everything included?

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

The reality that those 1998/1999 spec PCs are blowing the Dreamcast out of the water in terms of performance? The only one close to Dreamcast performance is the RIVA and you conveneintly left out the resolution and other details you were running it at. It's also the only one not in the same PC with the same CPU.

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PC blowing any console in this era, a common 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 card is the most popular gpu on win95 era and it can handle over 7 million triangles per second and 333 megatexels per second fill rate. The upgraded models perform even bether.

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

Which one of those systems cost $200 with everything included?

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That's not the point though. We all know consoles win in the cost to performance ratio, especially back around the late 90s. The issue here though is that sheath years ago was trying to claim that the Dreamcast and other consoles were as powerful if not more powerful than PCs at the time of their launch. Which that's just absolutely ridiculous as his own graphs show.

Here's an example of him claiming this in this very thread:

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Originally Posted by sheath

In my experience, game consoles all the way up to the second "HD" generation happening today were always six months to a year ahead of much more expensive consumer PC hardware. The Dreamcast is no exception, the PS2 and PS3 were, the N64 had worse textures than PS1, Saturn or especially Matrox optimized PC games, and of course the Nintendo Wii, WiiU, PS4 and Xbox One have been established as old tech in a new package or smaller package and not much price benefit.

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So, the point is that I made a comment with "in my experience" clearly made. It was a discussion, I knew and still know that information needs to be found for any objective discussion to ever happen. I have been all about that, how about you trekkies?

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Originally Posted by sheath

So, the point is that I made a comment with "in my experience" clearly made. It was a discussion, I knew and still know that information needs to be found for any objective discussion to ever happen. I have been all about that, how about you trekkies?

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Oh it goes back further than that, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Do you really want us to dig up all the "The entire generation was hovering around 1 million polygons per second" quotes again?

As for Dreamcast vs 1998/1999 PCs we already know the answer to that from benchmarks back around the time. PCs outperformed it as was expected. No more information really needs to be found, it's already out there if you just look for it with an objective outlook. Heck I already posted plenty of benchmarks and raw footage of those games running on 1998/1999 PC hardware in this very thread years ago.

The point is, you are the exact opposite of objectivity. You don't go in to these discussions to learn, you don't do research to learn. You do it to try and prove yourself right about a preconceived bias you have in your head and it ends up skewing your "research" and making most of your findings worthless. When we bring up our own research and facts that debunk what you're saying, you never admit to being wrong and own up to it and move on. You instead double down and start attacking us all and labeling us all as trolls.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

Oh it goes back further than that, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Do you really want us to dig up all the "The entire generation was hovering around 1 million polygons per second" quotes again?

As for Dreamcast vs 1998/1999 PCs we already know the answer to that from benchmarks back around the time. PCs outperformed it as was expected. No more information really needs to be found, it's already out there if you just look for it with an objective outlook. Heck I already posted plenty of benchmarks and raw footage of those games running on 1998/1999 PC hardware in this very thread years ago.

The point is, you are the exact opposite of objectivity. You don't go in to these discussions to learn, you don't do research to learn. You do it to try and prove yourself right about a preconceived bias you have in your head and it ends up skewing your "research" and making most of your findings worthless. When we bring up our own research and facts that debunk what you're saying, you never admit to being wrong and own up to it and move on. You instead double down and start attacking us all and labeling us all as trolls.

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Do you really want me to dig that up? Because it is still a valid observation. Lighting and multitexturing were an excuse for lower polygon counts, just like 1080p and 4K are an excuse for lower framerates today. You trolled me, actively instead of carrying on a discussion. I'd rather you not stay a troll.

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Originally Posted by Pyron

PC blowing any console in this era, a common 3DFX Voodoo3 3000 card is the most popular gpu on win95 era and it can handle over 7 million triangles per second and 333 megatexels per second fill rate. The upgraded models perform even bether.

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What I found interesting was the high polygon count tests. These coincide with developer comments from the time. This thread was getting interesting with vector counts from emulators as well.

http://gamepilgrimage.com/content/3d...000-benchmarks

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...Geforce2MX.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...ce2MX_680w.png

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Originally Posted by Barone

Is there any point you're trying to make with these posts or it's just your regular trolling?

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Nope, back in the day we posted results and discussed them. I have only a few ideas about what these results actually mean.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Do you really want me to dig that up? Because it is still a valid observation. Lighting and multitexturing were an excuse for lower polygon counts, just like 1080p and 4K are an excuse for lower framerates today. You trolled me, actively instead of carrying on a discussion. I'd rather you not stay a troll.

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Except it's not a valid observation at all. We now have polygon counts for numerous games including launch software for the PS2 and Gamecube which show not only more than 1 million polygons per second, but completely blowing it out of the water. Rogue Squadron 2 on the Gamecube was hitting 7-12 million polygons per second and it's a launch title. Ridge Racer 5, Tekken Tag Tournament, and Metal Gear Solid 2 all hit about 2.5 million polygons per second. F-Zero GX and Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube both hit around 6 million polygons per second. Burnout on both hits around 4-5 million. For most games supposedly hovering around 1 million polygons per second it was honestly hard for us to find ones hitting that low of a number beyond Dreamcast games and the PS2 port of Resident Evil 4. Bringing up those valid numbers is not trolling you. It's presenting facts to the discussion. How you handle that information is your problem.

Your problem here is that coming into this discussion you're not able to deal with the possibility of learning that the Dreamcast might not be as amazing as you want to believe.

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Originally Posted by sheath

Nope, back in the day we posted results and discussed them. I have only a few ideas about what these results actually mean.

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Then discuss your point. If it's that you're still trying to prove that Dreamcast was 6 months to a year ahead of consumer PC technology, then I think it's safe to say your own benchmarks prove that wrong. And looking at benchmarks from the time, I'm seeing some big differences in what you have:

http://www.3dgw.com/hardware/benchmarks.php3

So I'm guessing either you didn't set your drivers and everything up properly, or you skewed the data. And considering that guy posted a lot more detail about exactly what he did than you, I'm willing to put more weight into his numbers than yours. All we have from you are some graphs and then a rant about the Dreamcast vs the world. How many times did you run each test on each set up? What drivers did you use and how did you get your frame counts? Did you kill all non important processes before hand? Those are all pretty important pieces of information which you didn't give.

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Originally Posted by sheath

What I found interesting was the high polygon count tests. These coincide with developer comments from the time. This thread was getting interesting with vector counts from emulators as well.

http://gamepilgrimage.com/content/3d...000-benchmarks

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...Geforce2MX.png

http://gamepilgrimage.com/sites/defa...ce2MX_680w.png

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Humm nice, but we must be fair with the comparisons. Is not much about polygons... because none of this games are made to use the full potencial of any 3D card at the time...
going to another side..

GeForce 2 was launched much later than Voodoo 3 card, also 3DFX cards delivers a superior image quality and effects using glide than directX at the time and bether performance overall:

http://images.anandtech.com/old/vide...s/image008.gif

Direct X
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...nreal2-d3d.jpg

Glide
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...eal2-glide.jpg


Much time later Nvidia launched GeForce2 to compete with VooDoo5 5000/6000 cards, this time nvidia card was in advantage, because it was a opengl monster and they was pushing the tecnology ahead with the developers because anyone can use it,
against proprietary tecnology of 3DFX causing the majority of studios don't support Glide in the new titles... making 3DFX enters in the dark age!!!

Voodoo cards just can compete on games that still glide suport like unreal tournament, but in quake opengl geforce jump ahead.

http://www.x86-secret.com/pics/diver...Q3A_2xFSAA.JPG
http://images.anandtech.com/old/VIDE...s/image002.gif
http://images.anandtech.com/old/VIDE...s/image008.gif

Also in this time we know that nvidia using tricks in drivers to increase the performance in bechs/top games to gain fps to score over 3dfx cards,
these tricks decreace image quality to gain fps.. even using opengl... any people can see it at time.. its sad!

Geforce 2 Open GL
http://images.anandtech.com/old/vide...oglfsaaoff.jpg

Voodoo 5 Open GL
http://images.anandtech.com/old/vide...ts/lookfor.jpg


So we must be carefull with comparisons :ok: